Currently electrical contacts or wire contacts are used to terminate a wire. Wire contacts require a strong mechanical means of attaching to the wire to create a permanent termination and a means to mate to a mating contact to form an electrical connection. For example, a wire contact may have a crimp end for terminating the wire and a male or female mating end to a mating contact. Some contacts have been developed from metal strips or pre-plated metal strips, which are stamped and then folded or formed into the appropriate shape. These contacts have a generally box shaped mating end for mating to a contact having a pin or blade type mating end. Contacts with a boxed shaped mating end have external size and shape requirements to fit into a cavity of a connector and an internal design for providing the mechanical and electrical connection means for receiving and holding the pin or blade contact of the mating contact. In current contacts having generally boxed shaped mating ends, a contact or compliant beam may be the means to receive and hold the mating pin contact.
However, when inserting or extracting a box-shaped mating end of a contact from the connector cavity, the sharp edges on the box-shaped mating end may damage a seal used on sealed connectors. Additionally, some contact designs may not provide the preferred mating force for inserting the pin contact into the box mating end, or the preferred contact normal force during use. Further, terminal boxes that are too large may stretch and pinch seal glands, as the large rectangular box is inserted into a smaller, round aperture of the seal, causing the seal glands to stretch to a point that the seal is compromised.
In some prior art connectors, contact beams may have a high spring force, which decreases the ability to control the normal force applied by the contact beam, increasing the mating force of the connector, and increasing tolerance sensitivity. Other connector problems may arise from having the contact beam exposed to the mating pin, leaving the contact beam unprotected from damage from external factors.
What is needed is a system and/or method that satisfies one or more of these needs or provides other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments that fall within the scope of the claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the aforementioned needs.